I knew exactly how they felt.

Anabelle and I stood against the back wall with several other teachers and volunteers, all staring out over the mostly empty auditorium. The sophomore girls took up less than three full rows.

When Sister Cathy stepped up to the podium, my stomach began to churn.

“Good morning, girls,” she said, and we all flinched when the microphone squealed. Sister Cathy repositioned it, then started over. “Good morning, girls. As you all know, today is your annual physical. As you may also know by now, the tenth-grade physical is a little different from the exams you’ve gotten in previous years. Today, in addition to assessing your general health and development, we will also be conducting your first reproductive assessment.”

My hands felt cold. And damp.

Sister Cathy made it sound perfectly reasonable. Civilized. Routine. As if there were no emotion involved. But the truth was actually brutal for the girls sitting in those chairs, hands clenched in terror. By the end of the day, every girl in Melanie’s class would be declared either fit or unfit to procreate.

Those declared fit would be given a second assessment before marriage, and a third when they applied for a parenting license.

Those declared unfit would be scheduled for sterilization. Immediately.

My stomach twisted again, as if my breakfast wanted to come back up. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, and when I looked at the stage again, I realized I’d missed the introduction. I had no idea what the nurse’s name was, or when she’d stepped up to the podium.

“The important thing to remember today, girls, is that the reproductive assessment isn’t personal.” She said it with an air of authority. As if that made it true. “It’s not an assessment of you as a person, or of your ability to love and raise a child. Or even your ability to carry a child. It’s a simple issue of numbers.”

Numbers.

The Church was all about the numbers. I guess they had to be, since our population had been decimated by the horde a century ago. We couldn’t recover most of the souls devoured by the Unclean, and since no one knows how or even if new souls can be created…

“There aren’t enough souls to go around anymore.” The nurse finished my thought out loud, and I realized it didn’t matter what her name was, or what the name of the nurse who’d spoken to my class was, because ultimately, they were both Sister Nurse. This was the same speech countless Sister Nurses all over the country were saying to thousands of fifteen-year-old girls in every town that had survived the onslaught. The same thing Sister Nurses had been saying for more than eighty years, ever since the Church imposed restrictions on reproduction.

“The Unified Church has a responsibility to make sure that the available souls go to the babies with the best chance of survival. That way, virtually all our children live.”